Professor Juan Pablo Hourcade and co-authors/student advisees Flannery Currin - who recently defended her doctoral thesis, Summer Schmuecker (Informatics U2G MS - Spring '24) and Delaney Norris (Informatics U2G MS) recently published “Understanding Adult Stakeholder Perspectives on the Ethics of Extended Reality Technologies with a Focus on Young Children and Children in Rural Areas”.
This paper was awarded the Best Full Paper Award and Social Impact Honorable Mention at IDC '24 - the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference.

This research paper provides a first step toward identifying the dimensions involved in considering the ethics of XR technologies for children, which may also be relevant to other emerging technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence.

The quick pace of development for this type of technology, together with its associated opportunities, make it possible that it could eventually become a non-trivial player in young children’s technology ecosystem.

Study suggests some directions for the use of XR with children, e.g. virtually visiting museums, parts of the world/space, historical simulations, visualizations of 3D artifacts, or healthcare applications.